


Fool and King

by Nimravidae



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, Face Sitting (Sorta), Gender Issues, Genderfluid Character, Jealousy, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Other, Plotting and/or Scheming, Semi-Public Sex, Shapeshifting, Sibling Incest, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, ambiguous timeline, general mischief, trickery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 05:43:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15284934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nimravidae/pseuds/Nimravidae
Summary: Alternatively Titled: How Not To Be Sneaky, Seduce A Crown Prince, and Hide An IdentitySeeking revenge for a slight against him years prior, Loki puts together what might be his finest trick yet.





	Fool and King

**Author's Note:**

  * For [triedunture](https://archiveofourown.org/users/triedunture/gifts).



> The last Marvel fic I wrote was on FanFiction.net
> 
> Thank you to the blessed triedunture for reminding me why I loved thorki in the first place and generally for existing. lets picnic again sometime.
> 
> Read that tags and, like, enjoy if you enjoy.

“What, precisely, is the point of this masque?” Loki threads a measured amount of annoyed distaste through his tone, nose turning up. He examines the careful sculpture of the ceiling and the smooth slopes that connect it to the walls that flank him.

He doesn’t need to look to be certain that, from the other side of the hall, Thor has looked to him before scoffing and shaking his head. So he doesn’t.

“It doesn’t need a point, brother, it’s tradition.” He says, just as he has the year before, and the one before that, as far as Loki could remember. “Plus, it’s good fun. You used to enjoy them when we were children! So much so that I recall quite a few tantrums occuring once you realized the festivities were over and you had to go to bed.”

As far back as Loki could remember, or, perhaps, since then. Loki huffs, rolling his gaze back towards Thor. “I ceased attending because I realized how asinine the whole event was. Why hide our faces? We should be visible--celebrated, even, as the rulers of Asgard. And there fails to be a point to it, we do it every year, without fail, and without cause. There’s no noble birth, no wedding, no victory to celebrate. And it isn’t as though Asgardians require cause for drink.”

Again, Thor scoffs--though in the whole of this conversation, he’s done so an almost innumerable amount of times. As if Loki was the one being perfectly ridiculous. “By that virtue there doesn’t need to be a reason, besides Loki, everyone always knows it’s us despite the masks. Though, I believe if you ask you might find some archaic reasoning.” Thor pauses, and now, Loki looks at him, because he knows his brother is not looking back. And, true to form, he isn’t. Instead, he’s examining the same decorate tile above the same doorway that Loki had been. The hard lines forming some image not unlike, Mjølnir played out across an array of thick-twisting grooves. Like rope or vines or, if you were to take Loki’s personal opinion and not that of some courier or thick-headed prince, snakes.

After a moment, Thor’s head drops and he looks back, and Loki looks distinctly away. “And if all fails,” Thor finishes, belated, “say harvest. I do hope you’ll come. It’s never been the same without you there.”

His heavy, brutish, footfalls echo as Thor stages his retreat, leaving Loki behind. “Harvest,” he grumbles to himself, adjusting the wrist of his tunic. His own heels clip neatly against the floors as they carry him in the opposite direction. The sound is sharp, catching on only the braziers and sconces that line the cold hall.

Loki would not reach so far as to say it was a lie to claim that he was not interested in attending any sort of masqued feast because the idea itself is deplorable. Because it is, in theory. In reality, Loki had been fond of them, once. The hall bursting with energy, the bare walls adorned and dripping with gold and red in decoration--the smell of food and drink permeating the air as the endless movement of the seemingly endless swarm bodies filled it thick with warmth and exhilaration.

He used to love every moment of it--but he also used to attend at his brother heels, the two of them dragging in costumes designed to compliment one another, to be distinctly separate but with threads of familiarity reaching across the great hall. Like two pieces, not destined to fit together per say, but wrought of the same puzzle. They would attend at each other's elbows, gorge themselves on sweets and pretend to be adults in full garb. Smile and sneak away, chittering from behind gossamer curtains, waiting for stragglers to fall victim to one of Loki’s tricks.

The smile creeps its away across Loki’s lips, but it fades as fast as the memory once he rounds a sharp corner. It replaces with a scowl, tight and severe, as he strides past the guards to his own chambers. He stopped attending because he realized it was pointless--to hide one's face when one is the figurehead of a people, of a realm. He tried to explain it to Thor, the year he told their Father he would not be present, but he didn’t so much as blink. He was too caught up in arranging his costume to be fitting to match one of the young women he had been eyeing, and every year since attempting to get it through his thick head had been pointless.

He was more focused on other matters, on knowing it as a tradition for when he takes the crown, on women, on drink, on food, on the friends who will be beside him, on finding something, anything, he can slip his cock into. Loki slams his hand against a mirror before he even thinks to stop himself.

The glass spiderwebs but does not shatter, leaving dozens of little fractals in his reflection. His breath hisses through his teeth and oh-Loki takes a step back, drinking in the appearance. The unconscious mind must’ve adapted to the earlier discomfort in their form once the threshold to the chambers was crossed, magic shifting shape and now, Loki’s other form stared back out from the ruined mirror.

Where her hair had been barely skating his shoulders that morning, now it flowed, ink-black, down nearly to her waist. The lean and flat cut of her torso curved with wider hips and chest. The sharpness of her cheekbone more defined, lips thicker and her face altogether smoother. More delicate, more lovely.

She rubs her sore palm, the residual anger slithering thick in her bloodstream. She’d felt the itch to be back in this body that morning, but there was little time between businesses to allow herself the escape of rightness. Well. No one can come clean this up with her like this. She scrunches her nose and decides to handle it later. She has languishing to do.

Loki pours herself into her window seat, one leg bent at the knee while the other dangles towards the ground. Beneath her window, the gardens spill outward, allowing some visage of privacy so she needn’t worry about exposure in the confines of her own room. Here, she can be precisely who she wants to, can ponder precisely what she wishes to.

Like Thor. Her lips pitch into a tight frown. She hate’s so much as _thinking_ about him, especially when she’s in a mood like this. Reminiscing on days long past and the edge of something too close to longing in his voice when he said he hoped she’d come. Hope! He knows precisely how to get her to come! The same way he did all those years ago, when they were nothing more than gleeful pups, bouncing with excitement and drunk on playful formality and tradition. Thor bending at the waist and asking Loki if he’d attend, like a true gentleman!

Her teeth bare, like she can frighten her own memories back into submission, because then Thor had to go and spoil all of it. He stopped asking her to go, stopped asking her to do anything and started taking other instead. The Warriors Three, Lady Sif, any maiden who so much as batted her eyes at him. Her arms twine around her knee, hugging her leg against her chest.

They’re not children anymore and it would be foolish for her to assume that they could have remained what they had been. No, Thor had responsibilities. Thor had friends. Thor had it all and she was left in the shadows, alone in her costume with her mask askew and a whole hall full of boundless energy and excitement that seemed to stop before her very feet. A whole hall full of people and no one paying her any mind.

The bitterness roiled sickeningly in her stomach.

Part of her longs to go, not out of desire for the same enjoyment she once had, but to show him that she was capable enough. That he was wrong, about her, about the feast, about it all. She plucks herself up, smoothing down the edges of her tunic and imagining herself in something else. Flowing and neat, elegant but with flashes of skin. Bands of gold wrapping around her cutting a line of her figure. She crosses back to the mirror she shattered, experimentally twisting her hair back.

Thor said everyone recognized them, despite their masks, always knew who they were. She turned to examine herself. She’d done a few turns around the city in this body, walked the forests late at night, hid amongst others--even laid with them--and no one so much as suspected she was the Prince. Why would they? The Loki they know, the Loki they show, looks nothing like she. She’s never told anyone about this, not even Thor.

Her lips spit into a grin, and that coiled serpent of rage unfurls.

**_###_ **

Thor doesn’t mention it the next morning. Loki had changed again, stepping out into his day the same as he’d walked into his room the evening before. He rolled his eyes while breaking his fast, as Thor chatted at him endlessly about some hunt or training or something with which Loki has no interest.

But he doesn’t mention the event. Not when Loki finds himself amongst his favorite selection of books on magic, and Thor shatters his precious silence to instead track dirt and blood through the library to find him. He hisses, whipping the edge of his cape away from the mess.

“Must you?” Loki snarls, moving the stack of tombs away from Thor’s mess. “You’ll ruin something older than the two of us combined.”

Thor laughs, that hearty, belly-deep noise that Loki detests. It rings in his ear after Thor stops and instead clasps Loki’s back with one of his filthy hands. “Come on, brother,” he goads, despite Loki’s snarl. He rips himself from the warm touch and contorts himself to dust off his cloak.

“Let me guess,” he sniffs, lips pitching to a tight frown. “Whatever beast you were hunting made a quick escape because Fandral was too busy flaunting for whatever maiden had the unfortunate circumstance to be near the four of you. Luckily, you, ever the _hero,_ made quick work if it before it could cause her any harm. And now, she will be accompanying you to the feast and you two will split the pelt of the creature for your wear.” He snaps the edge of his clothes once he’s content that he’s removed all traces of Thor’s touch before rounding on his brother. “Now,” he gives him his best dead, annoyed, grin. “Am I close?”

Thor has the gall to look taken aback by the sharpness. He blinks, the stupid ecstatic expression he’d been sporting when he ruined Loki’s evening mangled into something else. He gestures, those coarse, square palms upright in placation. “No, well, yes in the sense that I did slay it and I do find its pelt to be...suitable…” he trails off and shakes his head. “I came to ask…” Whatever it was, Thor clearly finds it not worth bothering and instead drops his hands. “You know what, nevermind, Loki. Clearly,” he gestures to the books, open on spells already mastered, “I have interrupted."

This time, unlike with the morning, when he leaves, Loki doesn’t seem him for the whole of the day. The rest of it is spent planning, organizing and designing. As he will be without the use of the tailors--not only because he would not dare trust them not to betray his confidence, but also because doing so would require arriving in his feminine form and the thought of exposing himself in such a manner, to tailors of all people, makes him feel almost violently ill.

Besides, he finds magicked clothes to be remarkably better fitted than anything.

It isn’t until two days past that Thor interrupts him, of course barreling in while Loki is en route to another part of his plan. One he’d dreamed up while laying in bed, soothing himself to sleep with thoughts of how his retribution would play out. Leather is needed for his costume, and what better place to find it than the beast Thor so evidently slayed.

He’s on his way when Thor spots him, lips splitting and pace quickening, even as Loki deftly turns on a heel to leave, pretending as though he wasn’t clearly on his way to the tannery. “Loki!” Thor calls, grasping at his elbow and spinning him around. “Why so quick, brother? Trying to avoid me?”

“Me, avoiding you. Never,” is his deadpanned response.

“On your way to the tannery?” Thor practically bounces on his heels as he asks, “Ah! Someone must’ve said something! I wanted it to be a surprise, but then I thought about how particular you are about your whole look--” “My what--” “--so I thought it best to tell you about it in person, but you never seem to be where I look.”

“Clearly.” Loki wrenches his elbow from Thor’s grip. “I have no idea what you’re speaking of and I swear I have no intent to go down to the tannery. I was simply taking a walk through the halls.”

Thor’s face falls once more. “So you haven’t changed your mind about attending? I thought with it only being a short time away...”

Loki feigns ignorance, curling his lip as he tosses his hair over his shoulder. “Attending what? That childish masquerade?”

Those strong shoulders crumple, if only for a moment. “But of course.” And with a flick of crimson, he’s gone once more. Loki scowls at his back until he vanishes around the corner and then he returns to the plan at hand. It’s only a few more turns to the tannery he so vehemently insisted he was not going to.

Loki was never particularly fond of the place. The thick stench of solvents and death sits heavy over the whole hall before it, only worsening with each step until it peaks just inside the door. He tries, desperately, to take as shallow breaths as possible as he tosses his gaze from pile to pile, waiting for someone to take notice and prostrate themselves before him.

It’s only another moment until that happens, an artisan clambering down before him. “Prince Loki!” He exclaims, thoroughly surprised. “We were told you would arrive, but not so soon! Our sincerest apologies.”

Loki flicks a hand, dismissing them without so much as a glance. “I wish to see my brothers furs.” He grabs the hem of today's robe, lifting it to avoid stepping in some revolting puddle. The man scurries to show him.

He gestures to the racks. “There are the Princes’ costumes.”

“Yes, thank you,” Loki cuts him off sharply, the edge of his words biting against his cheek. Of course, they have doled out hide and pelt for Thor and his intended. For a moment, looking down at the separate racks, he’s certain he’s been shown to the wrong collection. “Are you certain these are them?” He asks, slowly, just in case this man proves to be an idiot.

“Of course, my Prince. These were brought it a few days ago, specifically ordered for the upcoming feast.”

Loki turns his gaze back down to them again, reaching out hesitantly to stroke the glossy-black fur. It’s soft to the touch, and Loki let’s himself run his fingers through it. He can’t actual summon an image of Thor cloaked in this, and the harder he thinks the more difficult it becomes. Surely, he would wish for something golden or yellow or auburn--something warm that ripples under the glimmering light instead of shying away from it like this heavy dark. Something that would highlight the gold under his skin and the glow in his eyes. Surely, Thor would wear red, he always wears red just as much as Loki always wears green.

This wouldn’t match him at all, the oaf. Perhaps Loki’s lucky that he wouldn’t be attending with Thor. It would a nightmare to be caught accompanying such an atrocity.

“Cut me two leathers from this, and a shoulder of fur.” He snaps, his nose (still struggling under the agonizing stench of the workshop), “And make sure it is from _this_ crop. I’ll accept no other.”

With that, he snaps the hem of his robes and finds his own way out.

He expects Thor to come for him, to burst into whatever room Loki is occupying and accost him for using his furs. But he never does. He doesn’t ask for what cause Loki has taken them, doesn’t ask why, doesn’t remind him that those furs were intended for someone and Loki is being incredibly rude and selfish for using them for his own benefit.

It is a short few days until the items arrive at his chambers. They're cut thicker than his liking, clearly meant to service a masculine form. But that's nothing a simple blade won't repair. He changes form to a more appropriate one, and gathers them in her arms. She carefully trims the edges down, until they highlight her in precisely the way she prefers.

It takes all of Loki’s self-restraint to not immediately shiver when she imagines what it will look like. She can make it happen, right here, right now but she stops just before she does. The anticipation builds and burns under her skin, reaching deep through her until it curls and shudders low in her belly.

She wants to wait, drag it out. Keep herself in heady anticipation. She curls her toes along the floor and carefully lays out the leathers and fur, someplace they won’t be disturbed, before she sits herself at her vanity, legs daintily crossed at the ankle, and brushes out her hair. She hasn’t bothered to send for someone to repair her mirror, and now, with her shattered reflection glittering back at her a few times over, she doesn’t quite see the point in doing so just yet.

It isn’t until she’s laid out in bed, warm and content with the fantasy of revenge she’s played out time and time again, that Loki lets herself handle the heat that still bit at her core. She lets her eyes drift closer as her fingers dance over the plane of her stomach, pushing her sleeping gown up past her chest. A deep breath in, and she thinks of how Thor looked when he left for the last masquerade a year before. Strong and tall, a speckled pelt over his shoulder and a twisted golden mask wrought into something feral. He’d come, stumbling drunk and merry, into Loki’s chambers, shouting of all she was missing.

Loki had sent him away at the time, but it’s that image--his arm guards pointed into fangs at their edges, the way the furs were shaped to his body to highlight the narrow cut of his waist. The matching fur at his calves and the gold that laced the blood-vermillion tunic beneath it. He was a spector of a hunt, a beautiful creature of the wild. Loki steals that image for her fantasy, putting him back in the Great Hall, decorated once again like they were children. Him, standing there, abandoned by whatever harlot he’s called upon for the evening.

And then she’d sweep in, take him by the hand. (Her fingers circle the bud of her nipple, pinching just enough to tease) He would never know it was her. He’d be foolish, thinking he’d found some woman, some woman who matches him. Who wears the complimentary emerald to his crimson, who bears the other half of his pelt. She’d dance with him, press her body against his (she rakes her nail over it, not bothering to quiet the gasp she sounds into her pillows) and make him feel her.

He would adore her, he would fall for her--an idiot and a fool. Dancing with this illusion, this mirage he could never truly obtain. (She waits until her toes curl before she delves lower, dragging her fingertips from her sternum down to the cut of her hip and back up once more. Taunting. Teasing the ache between her legs) He would be _enamored._ He would fawn over her. He would touch her like she was made of glass or porcelain or something his heavy hands could shatter (she slides a finger down her lips, reveling in the soaking heat, before circling her clit) he would yield to her. He would _remember her._

And he would never have her. They would be there, in full view of all of the Aesir, Thor holding fast to her as they press together, dancing and drinking until his feet ached and his face was flushed (she presses harder, faster, as her hips arch and each breath catches and carries breathy moans) He would want her, he would want to know her as any man wants to know a woman like her--he would be desperate, hard and aching in his trousers, (she builds and builds, her other hand joining the first to sink two fingers into her desperate slit) pleading for release by her hand or mouth or cunt or anything she would be so willing to offer but she won’t, she’d leave him there, mortified and alone and shattered in the shadows, she’d _win._

She narrowly avoids crying out when she comes, biting hard at the edge of her pillow instead. _She’d win,_ she tells herself, as the waves shudder through her. She slumps down, wincing as she withdraws her fingers and debates between getting up to wash herself or using eons of ancient magic to take care of it instead.

In the end, it’s easier to lay in bed, waving a sticky hand and vanishing every trace of the whole thing. She sleeps like a babe, heavy and warm and extremely self-satisfied.

Loki wakes and immediately changes forms upon standing. He dresses and prepares for the day, only pausing a moment to drag his fingers over the thick lines of his mirror.

And it’s that pause that saves him from being hit when the door to his quarters swings open unannounced.

“Loki!”

His heart is in his chest, not only for the immediate and startling intrusion into his privacy, but also for the fact that had Thor been only a scant few minutes quicker, he’d caught Loki in his lady form, which would mean the entire thing would be on display and all of Asgard would surely know and he’d be ruined, everything he wanted, everything he’d built, everything he’d hoped for--gone.

It’s a breath of panic that he refuses to allow Thor to witness. So instead of express it, he hisses, “Was I the only Prince who ever learned to knock?”

Thinking quickly, he crosses to the table his leathers were spread on and snatches them, hiding them behind his back.

Thor, for all his thick-skulled nonsense, actually notices something for once. “What are your hiding?” There’s a wariness to his voice that Loki quickly addresses.

“It’s not a knife, you half-wit, why would I stab you in my own bedroom?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Thor reminds, still taking a half-step back nonetheless.

Loki casts his eyes to the ceiling, “You shouldn’t have been in here. Either way, there is no knife in my hand now.” There is, of course, one on his hip, two in his boots, two more up his sleeves. But Thor needn’t know of those. “If you must know,” he casts about for a lie. “I had a maiden in here.” An incredibly poor lie, _especially_ for him. “And she left some of her belongings.”

Thor has the incredible lack of tact to look surprised. “A maiden?” He asks, with a tone that sounds remarkably like teasing. Loki grips the leathers and sharply steps back the moment Thor lunges forward, trying to grasp for them. His shoulder collides with Loki’s chest as he fails to parry entirely.

“Come now, brother, don’t be shy. Tell me all about her!” Thor jests as he makes another grab for Loki’s hidden bundle, but this time he’s much more quick on his feet, waiting until Thor looks away to cast an illusion of himself.

He barrels right through it the next time, handing heavily on his knees. The noise draws in a guard, but Loki just presses his lips together and holds up a hand, shaking his head. Thor, in traditional fashion, laughs. “That was not fair.”

“Neither is you trying to invade the privacy of whatever woman I lured into my chambers.”

Dusting himself off, Thor stands and flicks a lock of golden hair behind his ear. “Well, give her my regards.”

Loki can only give him a tight-lipped and dismissive smile, already feeling the knot of anxiety begin to unfurl as Thor turns to leave without ever stating his original intent in the first place. He only makes it as far as the door before he turns. “I came to ask if you were sure that you had no intention to attend. Two days is not too long for the tailors.”

There’s something else in Thor’s voice, something deeper than just idle curiosity. It piques Loki’s curiosity more than it should. “You’ve never been so insistent, brother.”

He heaves a shoulder in a shrug in the doorway. “I just thought we could celebrate together again,” he says, and Loki, for just a single, foolish, moment, thinks it could have been sadness. But Thor is gone too quickly to tell.

He twists the leathers, now warm and slick with the sweat of his palm, and tries not to think too hard at it. Just because Thor asked doesn’t mean a single thing would change. They would arrive together, would share a few moments before his second would arrive, then Thor would leave him standing there again, abandoned and alone. He’d be stuck watching them twirl and dance and drink and be merry together, leaving him just as small and cold as the day he was taken as a babe.

In his head, she looks like him.

He pries his fingers off the furs one by one until he can finally whip them down onto the bed. He follows soon after, fingers through his hair.

He stays there, until long past the setting of the sun.

**_###_ **

Thor doesn’t attempt to entice him again. Which manages to simultaneously please and infuriate Loki. He waits the whole of the following day for Thor to give him one last plea, one final vow for a celebration together but it never comes. Thor is whisked away for a final fitting for his costume, then for some business with something that Loki could not conceivably care less of.

He doesn’t so much as engage with Loki, he leaves him to his final touches on his plan. Which, on a typical day, Loki would very much approve of.

He puts the final touches on his outfit for the evening, and crafts as many plans as necessary to ensure he could ensnare Thor. The day before goes smoothly, the whole of Asgard bustling in preparation, as though it has been eons since their last event and not only a scant bit of time.

The whole realm buzzes with excitement into the night, and the morning comes with sharp anticipation. Loki itches for his lady form all through his morning duties, the anticipation of coming back to her sharp in his mind, knowing that once he does, his plan is set well into motion. For once, it seems to drag out, hour by hour, minute by minute until he excuses himself to his chambers, nose stuck up to the ceiling again as he huffs something about the feast making too much noise for him to sleep tonight.

But as soon as the door clicks shut behind him, he sets his plan into motion.

She shivers into the proper form, and sits in front of her ruined mirror once more. As the days pass, chunks had fallen from it, leaving parts black and useless. However, there is more than enough mirror left for her to watch herself put her look together. Green and black smeared at her eyelids, dark khol-black lining them carefully. She paints red at her lips, and tells herself it is only to match Thor.

Then comes the hair, delicate braids twist into an ornate updo, the kind that makes her arms thoroughly exhausted by the time she slides the last pin into place. She shapes out cramped wrists and adjusts the line of one last hair before she finally pushes herself up.

For the moment she has been waiting for, for what she has been most anticipating most in her preparations.

Her dress is black, thick and heavy down to her feet, with cuts of snakeskin-green down the sides, cutting a sharp line into her waist and chest. She twists a hand, and snakes coil up her elbows, one settling and hardening to cold on her bicep, another on her opposing wrist. She magicks a thin, decorative gorget to match rising high on her throat, and leaving the skin of her chest exposed. The neckline itself is formed by hand, carefully pulling her purloined pelt over one shoulder and mirroring it on the other using the thick strap of leather. They meet at her waist, where the third wraps neatly around.

The cloak is of a similar coloring, hanging light from her shoulders.

The mask comes last. It was the most difficult thing to imagine, she would admit. Originally, she had thought a flare for the ornate. Something carved and serpentine. Or something beastly and reminiscent of Thor. In the end, she settled on simple. Gold molded to the shape of her face, without carved or sculpted decoration. The only amendment she made was to the bottom, at the rise of her cheeks, on either side, two lines draw down to her jaw, curving outward to a point. Reminiscent, she thinks, of fangs. Or, perhaps, horns.

She drinks in the shattered image of herself, heart fluttering in her chest as she casts herself with a brief spell to keep her out of sight. At the same time, she opens the door, she pushes a mirage, one of her masculine form, that she closely follows to keep the illusion.

Her breathing quickens and she feels that fire in her belly again, spurning her forward with all the power of plans well-laid. He would never know, and yet, she thinks he would. Deep in part of him, once she’s left him forever and wrenched herself from his life--he would feel it. Roiling in his stomach that he fell for his brother. Something she could _never_ have. Something he would always be forbidden, and Thor would feel it, deep in the core of his being, that Loki bested him.

She feels manic, electric, when her visage collapses and she’s there at the edge of the festivities. The music is sweet and deafening, half-drowned under the clang and clamor of the music. It’s everything she remembers it to be and better, because this time, people look. They don’t spare glances, watching her and Thor chase one another across the hall, they don’t give half-grins at the sight of wayward children. No--the _watch_ her. Each step is tracked with eyes, conversations freeze and she can feel every single gaze that sinks down upon her.

Her chin stands taller, lips curving into a wicked grin as she parts Asgardians like water. None approach her, but the awe that fills each parted lip and each wayward eye is enough to spur her forward. Deeper, deeper into the crowd as they collapse back in around her, returning to their previous groupings and abandoning old conversation for new.

She scans the crowd, hunting for her prey. She doesn’t spot him entangled with any fair maiden in the heart of the festivities, nor is he claiming horns of mead and wine for his own. She scours, lips pitching down as the feverish crowd begins to forget her.

It’s in a shadowed corner that she spots him sulking. Once again, her spirits lift to see him so miserable. She starts off just as a man inserts himself before her. She inclines her head before he has so much as the chance to offer and edges neatly around him with a polite, “Excuse me.”

His expression collapses and she tries desperately to not let the glee go to her head.

In the shadows, Thor looks striking. The pelt isn’t heavy over him as she thought it would be--instead it serves to line his breastplate and the edges of his cloak--a delicate touch of darkness against the cold silver and stark red. He doesn’t look a creature, but instead much like a warrior. The leather straps a sword to his hip, instead of his beloved hammer, and his mask is a cleverly wrought silver, engraved with whorls and twists like vines which, as Loki gets closer, matches the ones that cover his breastplate.

He looks...not only like a warrior, but a like one carved and wrought from iron and silver. He looks like he should standing in the center of the sprawling gardens under Loki’s windows, like he should be affixed to a podium.

He looks imperfect. Like something is missing somewhere. Loki steps closer, to the edge of the shadows that engulf him and waits until he looks up. At first, he doesn’t just stares to the corner and offers. “My apologies, but I only wish to view the festivities at this moment. Should you return, however, I would be more than happy to oblige you with a dance.”

She doesn’t move, only shifting her weight to cock out a hip. Pompous ass. Only then, does Thor deign to look over. His eyes widen, scanning her up and down before snapping back to her mask. “Have you been left on your own, sir?” She asks, narrowly avoiding _brother_ by the skin of her teeth.

He scoffs, but not the half-amused one he does with Loki, when he knows it’s her, and shakes his head. “You could say. I offered a place at my side to someone who rebuked me. Numerous times. I had hoped that maybe...” Thor sighs, knocking up his mask as he rubs under his eye. “But no, I am still without.”

She tries, desperately, not to smile. She doesn’t manage not to, but she does slink forward, resting her hand delicately on his bicep. “A fool,” she purrs, he looks between her hand and her mask a few times, as if he cannot quite contrive of what he’s seeing. “To leave a Prince like this.”

He almost smiles. “That obvious?”

“But of course.” She almost gags next, as she barely manages out a stiff, “my Prince.”

He huffs a bit of a laugh, but it’s like it’s stuck in his throat, not reaching deep into his stomach and rippling out from the depth of his lungs. It’s nearly uncomfortable in nature to hear it, especially when Loki has been forced to endure the other all his damned life. She presses forward, both figuratively and literally, putting herself at the edge of Thor’s space. He doesn’t stop looking at her this time, like she’s something he can’t quite figure out. Like there’s a question left to answer.

She grits her teeth to ask: “Would you allow me the honor of a dance?” It is going to be worth it, going to be worth it, she tells herself again and again. He stares at her, puzzled, for another long moment before his eyes follow the twist of her updo down the edge of her mask, resting on her delicate wrist before flickering back up.

He stares, silent, into her eyes for longer than she thinks he ever has. Her breath freezes and, for a moment, for a single, moment, she thinks she’s been made. But Thor’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, and extends his palm to her.

It’s exactly what she wanted, exactly how she dreamed, as he takes her hand in his, eyes turning back to the crowd, “It isn’t music to dance to.”

One of his thick hands finds her waist nonetheless, and she curves her palm over the warm metal at his shoulder. “Does not seem to stop you. You’re more…” Tactless, inelegant, crass, oafish, without decorum--she fishes around for something she can warp into a compliment. “Warrior, than you are dancer,” she lands on, smiling as warm as she can with her tongue pressed against her teeth. “No one will blame you.”

His eyes slide from hers down to her lips and back again. “Luckily, no one is watching,” he half-whispers, tilting his head as they sway. Loki forgets herself, for just a moment, and steps forward to guide him, tiring of just of the lazy back-and-forth. She only realize her mistake when Thor steps back, yielding to her lead with the second much more easily.

She frowns, tightly, as he doesn’t even comment. To test him, she does it again, and sure enough he follows--allowing her to lead their short dance. It’s a few more steps as such, back and back and a few to the side, the sort of thing she learned once, ages ago, in an effort to be more well-rounded and proper.

The only acknowledgement Thor makes is to adjust their hands, sliding his own over her shoulder and letting her find his waist. He’s a gentleman and she hates it. When he slides his hand off her to spin them, he doesn’t graze her breast like he can. He doesn’t stare down the cut of her dress, he doesn’t stroke her arm. He just gazes at her, with this warm sort of affection that feels so absurdly foreign and familiar at once.

“This fur suits you well,” he says, after a brief silence wherein Loki makes a valiant attempt not to scream.

“Thank you,” she says, perhaps too sharp, given that Thor’s brow arches in question. “It was a gift.” Though not intended for her. He needn’t know that.

“Not from a husband, I hope.”

She is well aware that she should feel revolted as Thor pulls her closer with that comment, until they’re bodies are nearly pressed together. Her breath catches and she tries to summon some capacity for shame at the very least, but all that comes is warmth. Radiating from him, from her, catching somewhere in the middle and making the entire embrace incredibly stifling. She longs to let go, to drop his hands and hike up her skirts and take off back into the palace and hide in the alcoves until everyone else takes their leave. But she cannot help but stare at the point where her hand clasps Thor’s waist, realizing the missing aspect of his costume is green. He cannot be the statue of the garden’s center without the garden, without being surrounded by emerald and jade.

She feels the urge, stronger than ever, to take off.

But she doesn’t. Instead, she licks her lips, far too aware of how Thor tracks them with his eyes. Far too aware of the flexing grip on her hand, of the way he adjusts their hands back to their original positions; of how she steps closer once more.

 _I want to seduce him to hurt him_ , she says to herself, but even she has trouble listening as she leans closer to breathe in the scent of him. _I want to seduce him to hurt him._

“A gift from a brother,” it tastes like poison. _I want to win. Make him hurt._ They return to swaying together, another song before he pulls away, face contorted with confliction. She doesn’t realize why until she remembers he was intended to be here with someone else. Quickly she casts a glance over her shoulder, but no one is even watching them in their secluded corner.

Thor tilts her chin back. “I’m going to find us some drink,” he says, catching her eyes once more with his. “Don’t go anywhere.”

She doesn’t say a word, when he leaves. It would hurt him to leave now, she is very much aware of that. It would agonize him and burn in his gut what he did wrong to send her away, where he failed as a partner, what he said, what he did, what he wore that turned her astray. It would nag in his mind for hours, maybe until tomorrow, even.

But that’s not the pain she wants to inflict. So she stays, each passing moment tasting more and more like the time before this. It’s only when he returns, two goblets in hand, that she relaxes and instead, braces herself for a swallow of mead. Loki takes the offered one, trying her best not to turn her nose. She never cared much for the drink, preferring instead sweet wines. She sips, carefully, at first, entirely shocked to find exactly what should would rather be drinking.

The surprise must play on her face, because Thor provides a wicked grin in response. “A lucky guess?” He asks, and she hides her frown with another swallow.

“I suppose.” Her heart had evened out, both from the brief abandonment as well as the closeness of before. She tries not to think of her reaction, of her readiness to be so close. Thor was the one that was supposed to want her, he was the one who was supposed to beg and plead and press eagerly only to have his pleasure and happiness snatched away at the final moments. He was supposed to be the one to have everything torn away.

“I have not seen you at these before,” Thor points out, between heavy drinks and the smash that has indicated his completion. Soon, another appears by way of tray and servant. Loki sips hers slowly.

“It’s been a while since I have attended one.”

“Do you find them childish and without proper causation for celebration.” Well that sounded pointedly bitter. Loki turns her nose up with a scoff.

“I find myself incredibly busy,” she corrects. But Thor doesn’t cow back and apologize like he usually does when he makes an absolute fool of himself. Instead he just makes a face into his tankard and quaffs the rest. She sets aside her nearly-empty goblet on a ledge, watching him to the same instead of summoning another.

He is standing much to far for her to continue this, so she steps closer, letting her cloak billow slightly with the sharpness of her movement. “Have I offended you?” She asks, trying very much not to sound like herself and instead, sound sincere.

Thor shakes his head, that wild golden mane rocking with it. “No, you have done nothing. It is me. There is...it’s…” he drops his hands again, wringing them together. “Dance with me? Again?”

There’s a pleading to his voice that Loki almost doesn’t recognize. She very nearly says no, her hand posised back as if to recoil from his outstretched one. But his eyes are thick with something desperate, something deeply enrapturing and repulsive. She slides his hand into his and tries to ignore how well they lock together when he pulls her flush to his chest. He’s gentle as he buries his nose in the knot of her hair.

He doesn’t move, doesn’t sway, doesn’t lead or follow. He stands there, for another beat longer, before they move. His thick fingers splay at the small of her back, and she can feel every inch of him. Every insistant point of contact, the way his fingers curl delicately around her palm, the scrape of his coarse facial hair at her temple, the press of her soft breasts against the unforgiving metal of his chestplate.

Her hand is drawn without her consent, moving of its own volition down his chest until it curves under his arm back to his shoulder, pulling her closer.

There’s a beat, where she swears he knows, but he doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t recoil or snap, or call him a snake. He stays there, hand shifting back and forth against her back but never inching down to grab her ass. He can’t know, she tells herself. If he knew, he wouldn’t be holding her like this.

She pulls her cheek from his shoulder and watches him for just another moment. Longing fills her in ways she’s long since forgotten it could. He dips his head and her heart ceases to beat and her lungs cease to fill and her eyes half-shut in anticipation, but he only brushes the edge of her mask, kissing the metal instead of her. “We shouldn’t,” he whispers, and her fingers wrap around the edge of his breastplate, bleaching her knuckles against her skin.

Her teeth find her lip. It was never supposed to go this far, but another scant inch forward and she’s pressed all along the length of his body, the insistent press of his cock at her hip. She pushes herself up. It was never supposed to go this far.

She can still win. She can still hurt him like this.

She never exactly imagined an oaf like him would be a gentle kisser, but he is. He holds her fast, doesn’t shove his tongue immediately past her lips, doesn’t bend her back and claim her like he could. He bows lower, accepting what she gives and not taking another inch more. They part, for a moment and she can still hurt him. She can leave now. She can tear herself away from him and leave him hopeless and bitter and hard in the middle of this stupid, pointless, fest.

All she does is take a step back, but Thor pulls her back, crushing their lips together in exactly the sort of kiss she knew he was capable of. This one is claiming, demanding, bruising and desperate. Everything he is, everything he’s ever shown himself to be. She gasps and he takes her, tongue tasting like bitter drink, and her knees go weak.

 _I can still hurt him like this_ , she reminds herself again and again as she heaves herself closer to him, kissing him filthily in the hidden shadows. Their masks clink together awkwardly, the curved edges of hers scratching at his cheek. He hisses when he pulls back.

“I know of a place,” he says, and for a moment she’s so dizzy on everything that’s happened she cannot fathom what it is he means. He knows a place, so does she. She knows plenty of places, including the one she’d prefer to be at this moment.

It clicks when he moves, his hand on the small of her back to guide her as well. It’s through the halls, someplace only a few loose stragglers ever find themselves during the party. It looks familiar in the sense that this is his home, but in another strange way. Thor ushers her past the gauzy curtains, into a darkened, hidden, alcove, where the confused cacophony of conversation and music can only be heard as a single hum.

“Here?” She asks, when realization strikes her in the icy pit of her stomach. Where they used to sneak off to, desperate children suddenly bored of the party and in dire of need of foolish entertainment. It felt so much bigger when they were so much smaller. Now it’s cramped, barely enough room for the two of them. Her leg would be flat against the wall if she lifted it and extended it even the smallest bit. With Thor’s back against the opposite wall, if she arched, he would brush her.

He looks around at her question. “It’ll do.” He steps as far back as he can, hands hovering over her hips and his eyes are sharp as he looks her up and down, drinking in every last inch of her. His hands hover lower, at the folds of her skirt. “May I?”

It isn’t supposed to go this far. It was never supposed to go this far. Those dreams--they’re only dreams. They were only ever dreams, not meant for the cold light of reality. But she cannot bring herself to deny herself.

Part of her has always known, the parts of her she refused to acknowledge, that she screamed was bred out of jealous and rage and desire for the crown, _not_ him. “Please,” she pleads, in a voice that is so terrifyingly her own. He drops to his knees and hikes up her skirt as long as it takes him to slip beneath it. His hands hind the bend in her legs and urge her lower.

She concedes to his guidance, and very quickly his mouth is upon her. She gasps, wet and hot as his lips press against hers, tongue sliding obscenely between them until he finds the catch of her slit. Fingers join to spread her apart as he licks her, each pass long and heavy, always stopping just before where she longs for him to go.

A whine escapes her and she can feel the huff of his laughter against her throbbing cunt. “Do it,” she hisses down, bringing a leg up to brace on the wall beside him, spreading her more for him. And he does. His lips seal around her clit, fingers slipping through her wetness before he sinks one into her. It’s been so long since any but her touched this form that she finds her edge with alarming celerity.

She hovers there, on the aching peak of fulfillment as Thor slows his movements, torturously and tauntingly slow. She thumps her head against the stones behind her, grinding her hips down as Thor pushes back up and ah--so that’s what he intends for her to do.

Adjusting her step, Loki pushes back down, rocking herself against his face and build her momentum again. Her hand finds the back of his head through the skirts and holds him there, letting her rut and use him until pleasure washes over her, thick waves as she flexes and grips around the finger he’s sunk deep inside her. He doesn’t stop letting her twitch and press against his mouth, and gives her a few parting licks before he clambers back out, hand and mouth sticky with her.

She draws him into a kiss anyway, reveling in the taste of herself on his tongue as he pulls his own mask off and lets to clatter to the floor. He pants, making it annoyingly difficult to kiss him properly, as she thinks she ought to, and abandons the kiss after a short while to instead scrape his cheek along her jaw. His hands move to the split neckline of her dress, and fear’s he’ll tear it.

“You can repair it,” he breathes, as if sensing her question. “I will replace the furs from my own cloak if need be.” He vows that, and with a sharp movement, splits the fabric at her chest down the center. “I do enjoy you in them however, my lady.” A kiss to her ear as he cups one of her now-exposed breasts. “I hunted them down for you.”

For her.

For her.

She swallows, thick, the hand on her no longer thrilling but instead brand-like hot. For her. Did he think...she was his intended. Sickness and bile fills her stomach and she presses against the cold stone behind her. Surely she can slither and escape. Drop down to a snake and do so quite literally even. “I haven't a clue what you mean. You’ve only met me now, my Prince.”

Thor pulls back, hooking a finger into the small horn at the side of her mask. He pulls it up and she flinches away. “Did you think I wouldn’t know you?” His voice is tender, sweet, and her throat closes around her stone-breath. He takes her chin between his thumb and forefinger so she’s forced to look at him and she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want him to know her.

To see her.

“Loki.” He hums it against her lips, kissing her soft and sweet and he still tastes like her. He tastes like her and he _knows._ Her nails catch as she holds him fast by the breastplate. “You can wear any form you like, wear a hundred masks,” he strokes along her cheekbone, watching her so carefully. “I know your speech, your walk,” a beat, a breath, “your eyes. Those furs were always for you, Loki, I wanted you to wear them, for us to be liked we used to. And then--I thought it was you at first but I couldn’t be certain.” He takes her hand, touches the cuffs. “Then I saw this, and your mask and or dress and I knew. I looked into your eyes and I knew for certain.”

“And you still did that?” She’s breathless with a crushing sort of cocktail of anxiety and elation. Fear and loathing.

He licks his lips, lips that she knows tastes of her still. “Are you in a place for judgement?”

No, is what she should say. But instead, she says nothing and wraps the leg that’s still propped on the wall around his hip. Thor touches her hip, as gentle as he had that first moment he laid hands on her. “Are you certain?”

She yanks him closer, grinding the bulge of his trousers against her nearly too-sensitive quim. “Are you in a place for judgement?” She echoes, and he laughs. Deep and from the pits of his lungs. It fills the tiny space they’re crammed in and he makes quick work of his costume, shedding the breastplate before unlacing his trousers.

She wishes she could see him, could take him in hand and feel the weight of his cock before he grinds the shaft of it along her, soaking himself in her--but they’re both too rushed, too hurried. Loose hair from her delicate updo falls in her eyes and Thor gently tucks it behind her ear, a tenderness rarely allotted to her, she would admit.

“Stop being coy and fuck me,” she says, tongue thick with silver sweetness as she tangles her thin fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. Thor doesn’t laugh again, but he does grind himself against her again, another slow drag of his cock against her cunt. It presses against her, pulsating against her dripping slit and her throbbing clit. She tries to shift for him, but he holds fast to her hip and doesn’t let her. Instead he just buries his nose in the crook of her neck and rocks against her again--just as slowly.

She hisses when it takes too long, giving his hair a quick and sharp tug. “You do know where it goes, right?”

His grin presses into his throat. “That’s the Loki I know,” he huffs. “It was strange, you being so nice to me when you thought I was not aware.”

“Please,” she grunts, trying once more to push down. He’s only got one hand holding her steady, the other keeping his cock in place, but she still can’t throw him. Stupid oafish brute. “Do not remind me.”

He lifts his head and peers up at her. “I do not intend to allow you to remember anything but my name,” he purrs.

She comes very near scoffing and telling him that without actually putting his cock in her, he won’t do anything of the sort. Except, then he does. To punctuate his vow, he pushes into her, thick cock spreading her open in ways it feels like ages since she’s been. She grips his hair in one hand and his shoulder in the other, nails biting into the linen of his undershirt. She sinks down, seating himself inside her and letting her adjust to the feeling.

“I’ve dreamed of this,” he breathes, hot at the base of her threat. It takes a swallow or four before she can find it in herself to respond.

“Like _this?”_

“Well,” it’s a half-hysteric laugh as he rolls his hips, making her gasp a broken-edged noise. “Not exactly. Here, bring your other leg up.”

“Thor, I swear if you drop me--”

“I won’t, I won’t,” he assures, between pants, releasing her hip to slot both hands beneath her ass. He doesn’t drop her, he does, in fact, hold her very much in please as he fucks into her, sliding deeper than he had in their previous position.

He takes her, he claims her, he fills her with himself but not without allowing her to exist as well. He takes care not to slam her back against the hard wall, to not dig his nails into the meat of her ass--he’s rough with her, thorough--but he doesn’t hurt her.

Even when his teeth find the juncture of her jaw and her throat, bruising the tender skin of her neck--it’s something she once hated for men to do, but Thor’s marking is done with near-adoration, too much to infuriate her. It, of course, doesn’t hurt that he strikes deep within her with each thrust, wrenching her closer and closer to oblivion as her vision blurs and she clings with all her strength to him.

She comes around him, heels digging into his back as he pushes into her again and again and again, fucking her through her orgasm she doesn’t even notice when he moves, hardly bouncing her as he frees a hand to shove between them, thumbing at her clit, oversensitive in the wake of her orgasm, and pushing her forward. She rocks into another before she has time to recover and only then, clenching painfully tight around him, does he fill her.

He grunts her name, teeth bared against her pulse point as he finishes with short, erratic, thrusts. She feels the rush, hot and filthy, and she drops her forehead to his shoulder. He holds her for another moment or two, keeping her comfortably full, as they pant together.

She’s set down one foot at a time, once Thor finally softens and is forced to slide from her body. The rush of fluid from her draws a sigh from her lips and an uncomfortable shudder from her spine. “This will be a nightmare to clean,” she notes.

“Is that the first thing you say?” A half-annoyed look crosses Thor’s brow and she pulls the torn edge of her top together.

“It will be,” she insists, nose turning up. “Though seeing as you contributed to it, it’s only fitting that you assist me with it. We can wait, however, until you’ve finished having me in my other form as well.”

“Other form?” He echoes. She tosses her hair back, letting her magic roll through until he’s standing much taller, broader in the dress still split down the middle.

Thor makes a choked noise as Loki gathers his mask. It doesn’t fit on this face properly, so he holds it instead. “If you stop standing there like some particularly dumb animal, I won’t even get too far along without you.” He flicks his cloak back over his shoulder and starts walking, his ruined dress carefully mending into a pristine, well-tailored, costume.

The clamber behind him is so painfully audible and so desperately rushed, that he can’t quite help but grin.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, you can turn my blog into a thorki blog over on [tumblr](http://tooeasilyconsidered.tumblr.com/)  
> If you didn't like it, you can direct your complaints [here](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/enhanced/terminal05/2012/2/21/16/enhanced-buzz-31560-1329859941-4.jpg?downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto)
> 
> otherwise, kudos+comments is a winning combination to more porn or whatever it is you want. I'm ur guy (gal w/e)


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